AC: Do it yourself and save

March 14, 2011

WALL TO WALL ... An unidentified Adams Central Schools employee is putting screws into a top support for one of 90 wooden wall panels installed in just nine hours by seven people from AC as 15 temporary classrooms were created in the physical education gym. The classrooms will be used while a construction project on the school’s southeast corner uses up the last part of the 2010-11 year and the first part of the 2011-12 year. (Photo provided)

Adams Central officials gave an impromptu lesson at the March school board meeting that could have been entitled "How to Save More Than $470,000 in Two Years."
The way to save, they indicated, is not to spend so much in the first place.
The lesson involved an idea that AC Athletic Director Rick Minnich and AC Middle School Principal Aaron McClure had to create temporary classrooms inside the school's large physical education gymnasium, according to AC Superintendent Mike Pettibone.
Pettibone said that, in 2009, the school was told that buying eight portable classrooms to be used by students temporarily displaced by a large construction and renovation project would cost $480,000. Other solutions, he said, ranged from $200,000 to $300,000.
The Minnich-McClure idea to erect wooden walls in the PE gym cost less than $10,000.
Pettibone, AC Facilities and Grounds Manager Todd McDonald, and AC project overseer Barry Ehinger said 15 classrooms were created in that gym, each measuring 22 feet by 30 feet. Room was left for hallways.
Six AC maintenance and custodial personnel, plus Ehinger, put up all the walls in just one day, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each room also has electrical wiring.
The walls were prebuilt by Carter Lumber Co. in 90 panels and were delivered on a trailer.
The construction/renovation project is scheduled to be done by October, so the school will be faced with what to do with the wooden panels. Some people have suggested giving them to Habitat for Humanity for building homes and others want to sell them or reuse them.